-
What Makes a Good Photographer?
Is the good photographer the person that can discover a unique perspective or scene in any environment? That can create a piece of art in an instant? Or go out on a jaunt and come back with something inspiring? Or easily delete or discard any photos they determine as unsuccessful in a quick glance (be…
-
When Tulips Reach Middle Age
A two and a half hour jaunt through the New York Botanical Garden during their annual orchid exhibit, this year designed by the artist known as Mr. Flower Fantastic, was characterized by a beautiful early spring day. It is always at this time of year, during the exhibit, that the cherry blossoms have just passed…
-
Good Intentions
I have already posted about Tim Carpenter’s (author, photographer, philosopher) book “To Learn to Photograph is to Learn to Die” but I continue to revisit this book and share ideas about it with the hobbyist photographer. Essential to Carpenter’s argument, that photography can prepare the photographer for death, is the act of “decreation.” In a…
-
The mental stumbling block. The creative impasse.
Down By the Hudson, 2026 Sigma BF Monochrome Mode, Sigma 35 DG DN, edited Under the Bridge, Kingston, NY 2026 Sigma Bf, Panasonic 85mm Years ago, while in college and trying to design a high rise building (or was that the redevelopment project along the Monongahela?) I was given great advice by a professor: Stefanie…
-
Protected: Is photography political?
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
-
Radiators
Once a main form of energy transfer between steam and air (convection and infrared), the simplicity of the radiator (originally called a “hot box” by the inventor) was, at one time, embellished to be something of an art form (and create more surface area for effectiveness). For those exposed in the grand Victorian home, the…
-
Faith in Color
Fresh Language Warning: In college, I had a friend/classmate studying architecture. The project, or “charrette” as we sometimes called them (always a French word to make us feel adult, intellectual and important), was an exercise in the exploration, use and recognition of color. Our task was to best recreate a color picture with a collage…
-
In Three Acts
Yesterday, I recently participated in a UNICO trip to see Madame Butterfly, an Opera by Puccini in three acts which tells the story of an American sailor, Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, whom marries a Geisha wife in Japan before leaving her to return to America and…marry again. He returns 3 years later only to find Madame…
-
Ocean Grove
Ocean Grove is a community in Neptune, New Jersey originally formed in the mid-late 1800s by Methodist ministers as a religious retreat location for parishioners…or as they called it then…a camp meeting community. It is the one of the longest active communities of its type in the United States. What is a “camp meeting community,”…
-
Color Me Impressed
Two streams of conscience at once. Can there be such a thing? Reading some notes I made in Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes, one note from the margin stands out in particular, “the onslaught of photos is creating a world of indifference rather than reacting to it – thereby preventing the photographer to escape it…
Amateur in photography. Amateur in life. 